County hires McCallum as emergency management coordinator

Young County Judge John Bullock recently announced Wayne McCallum was hired as Young County emergency management coordinator in February, while the judge will remain as the county’s emergency management director. McCallum has lived in Graham since 2002 and in September of this year will have served as the county’s Veterans Service Officer for seven years. He has served the needs of veterans and their families and works with between 1,400 to 1,700 veterans in Young County. Both county positions are part-time for McCallum, who said this is his first time working in a position such as EMC. He said he was approached by the county for the position, but he himself had interest in it. “Judge Bullock convinced me of a good opportunity and to learn things in the preparedness area and how everything works around here and so he gave me the opportunity and I am looking forward to it,” he said. Right now McCallum said his job is to figure out how his new position functions as well as how the surrounding counties and cities have their emergency management plans organized. In the future, he said, he would like to take more proactive measures to gauge the county plan. “My responsibilities at present is learning exactly what the job entails, the ins and outs of it, getting the training behind me,” he said. “The judge said at one time we would like to have some tabletop examples where we bring in everybody together and work through an example of who would do what, when in this type of emergency and practice our plan to make sure it’s viable.” For the rest of this story, subscribe to our print or online edition.